Read Uncollected Stories 2003 Online
Authors: Stephen King
It had been Bortman, the tenth man, who sent Dale and Andrea the
squad picture, already framed, the glass over the photo miraculously
unbroken in its long trip from Homan to Saigon to San Francisco and
finally to Binghamton, New York.
Bortman's letter was anguished. He called the other nine "the best
friends I ever had in my life, I loved them all like they was my
brothers."
Dale held the blue-lined paper in his hand and looked blankly through
his study door and toward the sound of the ticking clock on the
mantelpieces. When the letter came, in early May of 1974, he had been
too full of his own anguish to really consider Bortman's. Now he
supposed he could understand it – a little, anyway. Bortman had been
feeling a deep and inarticulate guilt. Nine letters from his hospital bed
on the Homan base, all in that pained scrawl, all probably written with
that same soft-lead pencil. The expense of having nine enlargements of
the Squad D photograph made, and framed, and mailed off.
Rites Of
atonement with a soft-lead pencil,
Dale thought, folding the letter again
and putting it back in the drawer with Anderson's. As if he had killed
them by taking their picture. That's really what was between the lines,
wasn't it? "Please don't hate me, Mr. Clewson, please don't think I killed
your son and the other's by – "
In the other room the mantelpiece clock softly began to chime the
hour of five.
Dale went back into the living room, and took the picture down again.
What you're talking about is madness.
Looked at the boy with the short blonde hair again.
I loved them all like they was my brothers.
Turned the picture over.
Please don't think I killed your son – all of your sons – by taking their
picture. Please don't hate me because I was in the Homan base hospital
with bleeding haemorrhoids instead of on the Ky Doe bridge with the
best friends I ever had in my life. Please don't hate me, because I finally
caught up, it took me ten years of trying, but I finally caught up.
Written on the back, in the same soft-lead pencil, was this notation:
Jack Bradley Omaha, Neb.
Billy Clewson Binghamton, NY.
Rider Dotson Oneonta, NY
Charlie Gibson Payson, ND
Bobby Kale Henderson, IA
Jack Kimberley Truth or Consequences. NM
Andy Moulton Faraday, LA Staff Sgt. I
Jimmy Oliphant Beson, Del.
Ashley St. Thomas Anderson, Ind.
*Josh Bortman Castle Rock, Me.
He had put his own name last, Dale saw – he had seen all of this
before, or course, and had noticed it...but had never really noticed it
until now, perhaps. He had put his name last, out of alphabetical order,
and with an asterisk.
Ah, but what you're thinking is madness, and you damned well know
it.
Nevertheless, he went to the telephone, dialed 0, and ascertained that
the area code for Maine was 207. He dialed Maine directory assistance,
and ascertained that there was a single Bortman family in Castle Rock.
He thanked the operator, wrote the number down, and looked at the
telephone.
You don't really intend to call those people, do you?
No answer – only the sound of the ticking clock. He had put the
picture on the sofa and now he looked at it – looked first at his own son,
his hair pulled back behind his head, a bravo little moustache trying to
grow on his upper lip, frozen forever at the age of twenty-one, and then
at the new boy in that old picture, the boy with the short blond hair, the
boy whose dog-tags were twisted so they lay face-down and unreadable
against his chest. He thought of the way Josh Bortman had carefully
segregated himself from the others, thought of the asterisk, and
suddenly his eyes filled with warm tears.
I never hated you, son
, he thought.
Nor did Andrea, for all her grief.
Maybe I should have picked up a pen and dropped you a note saying so,
but honest to Christ, the thought never crossed my mind.
He picked up the phone now and dialed the Bortman number in Castle
Rock, Maine.
Busy.
He hung up and sat for five minutes, looking out at the street where
Billy had learned to ride first a trike, then a bike with trainer wheels,
then a two-wheeler. At eighteen he had brought home the final
improvement – a Yamaha 500. For just a moment he could see Billy
with paralysing clarity, as if he might walk through the door and sit
down.
He dialed the Bortman number again. This time it rang. The voice on
the other end managed to convey an unmistakable impression of
wariness in just two syllables. "Hello?" At that same moment, Dale's
eyes fell on the dial of his wristwatch and read the date – not for the first
time that day, but it was the first time it really sunk in. It was April 9th.
Billy and the others had died eleven years ago yesterday. They –
"Hello?" the voice repeated sharply. "Answer me, or I'm hanging up!
Which one are you?"
Which one are you?
He stood in the ticking living room, cold,
listening to words croak out of him mouth.
"My name is Dale Clewson, Mr. Bortman. My son – "
"Clewson. Billy Clewson's father." Now the voice was flat,
inflectionless.
"Yes, that's – "
"So you say."
Dale could find no reply. For the first time in his life, he really was
tongue-tied.
"And has your picture of Squad D changed, too?"
"Yes." It came out in a strangled little gasp.
Bortman's voice remained inflectionless, but it was nonetheless filled
with savagery. "You listen to me, and tell the others. There's going to be
tracer equipment on my phone by this afternoon. If it's some kind of
joke, you fellows are going to be laughing all the way to jail, I can
assure you."
"Mr. Bortman – "
"Shut up! First someone calling himself Peter Moulton calls,
supposedly from Louisiana, and tells my wife that our boy has suddenly
showed up in a picture Josh sent them of Squad D. She's still having
hysterics over that when a woman purporting to be Bobby Kale's mother
calls with the same insane story. Next, Oliphant! Five minutes ago,
Rider Dotson's brother! He says. Now you."
"But Mr. Bortman – "
"My wife is upstairs sedated, and if all of this is a case or 'Have you
got Prince Albert in a can,' I swear to God – "
"You know it isn't a joke," Dale whispered. His fingers felt cold and
numb – ice cream fingers. He looked across the room at the photograph.
At the blonde boy.
Smiling, squinting into the camera.
Silence from the other end.
"You know it isn't a joke, so what happened?"
"My son killed himself yesterday evening," Bortman said evenly. "If
you didn't know It."
"I didn't. I swear."
Bortman signed. "And you really are calling from long distance, aren't
you?"
"From Binghamton, New York."
"Yes. You can tell the difference – local from long distance, I mean.
Long distance has a sound...a...a hum..."
Dale realized, belatedly, that expression had finally crept into that
voice.
Bortman was crying.
"He was depressed off and on, ever since he got back from Nam, in
late 1974," Bortman said. "it always got worse in the spring, it always
peaked around the 8th of April when the other boys ... and your son..."
"Yes," Dale said.
"This year, it just didn't...didn't peak."
There was a muffled honk – Bortman using his handkerchief.
"He hung himself in the garage, Mr. Clewson."
"Christ Jesus," Dale muttered. He shut his eyes very tightly, trying to
ward off the image. He got one which was arguably even worse – that
smiling face, the open fatigue shirt, the twisted dog-tags. "I'm sorry."
"He didn't want people to know why he wasn't with the others that
day, but of course the story got out." A long, meditative pause from
Bortman's end. "Stories like that always do."
"Yes. I suppose they do."
"Joshua didn't have many friends when he was growing up, Mr.
Clewson. I don't think he had any real friends until he got to Nam. He
loved your son, and the others."
Now it's him. comforting me.
"I'm sorry for your loss’" Dale said. "And sorry to have bothered you
at a time like this. But you'll understand…I had to."
"Yes. Is he smiling, Mr. Clewson? The others...they said he was
smiling."
Dale looked toward the picture beside the ticking clock. "He's
smiling."
"Of course he is. Josh finally caught up with them."
Dale looked out the window toward the sidewalk where Billy had
once ridden a bike with training wheels. He supposed he should say
something, but he couldn't seem to think of a thing. His stomach hurt.
His bones were cold.
"I ought to go, Mr. Clewson. In case my wife wakes up." He paused.
"I think I'll take the phone off the hook."
"That might not be a bad idea."
"Goodbye, Mr. Clewson."
"Goodbye. Once again, my sympathies."
"And mine, too."
Click.
Dale crossed the room and picked up the photograph of Squad D. He
looked at the smiling blonde boy, who was sitting cross-legged in front
of Kimberley and Gibson, sitting casually and comfortably on the
ground as if he had never had a haemorrhoid in his life, as if he had
never stood atop a stepladder in a shadowy garage and slipped a noose
around his neck.
Josh finally caught up with them.
He stood looking fixedly at the photograph for a long time before
realizing that the depth of silence in the room had deepened. The clock
had stopped.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Stephen King and I went to college together. No, we were not the best of
friends, but we did share a few brews together at University Motor Inn. We
did work for the school newspaper at the same time. No, Steve and I are not
best friends. But I sure am glad he made it. He worked hard and believed in
himself. After eight million book sales, it's hard to remember him as a
typically broke student. We all knew he'd make it through.
Last January I wrote of a visit with Steve over the holiday vacation. We talked
about his books,
Carrie
,
Salems Lot, The Shin
ing, and the soon to be released
The Stand
. We talked about how Stanley Kubrick wanted to do the film
version of his new book. We didn't talk about the past much though. We
talked of the future, his kids,
Flint
...
He gave me a copy of a story he had written for his children. We almost ran it
then, but there was much concern on the staff as to how it would be received
by our readers. We didn't run it. Well, we've debated long enough. It's too cute
for you not to read it. We made the final decision after spending in evening
watching TV last week. There were at least 57 more offensive things said, not
to mention all the murders, rapes, and wars...we decided to let you be the
judge. If some of you parents might be offended by the word 'fart', you'd
better not read it – but don't stop your kids, they'll love it!
How wicked was Witch Hazel? Well, once she had changed a Prince
from the Kingdom of New Hampshire into a woodchuck. She turned a
little kid's favorite kitty into whipped cream. And she liked to turn
mommies' baby carriages into big piles of horse-turds while the
mommies and their babies were shopping.
The King family lived by Long Lake in Bridgton, Maine. They were
nice people.
There was a Daddy who wrote books. There was a Mommy who
wrote poems and cooked food. There was a girl named Naomi who was
six years old. She went to school. She was tall and straight and brown.
There was a boy named Joe who was four years old. He went to school
too, although he only went two days a week. He was short and blonde
with hazel eyes.
And Witch Hazel hated the Kings more than anyone else in Bridgton.
Witch Hazel especially hated the Kings because they were the happiest
family in Bridgton. She would peer out at their bright red Cadillac when
it passed her dirty, falling down haunted house with mean hateful eyes.
Witch Hazel hated bright colors.
She would see the Mommy reading Joe a story on the bench outside
the drug store and her bony fingers would itch to cast a spell. She would
see the Daddy talking to Naomi on their way home from school in the
red Cadillac or the blue truck, and she would want to reach out her
awful arms and catch them and pop into her witches cauldron.
And finally, she cast her spell.
One day Witch Hazel put on a nice dress. She went to the Bridgton
Beauty Parlor and had her hair permed. She put on a pair of Rockers
from Fayva (an East Coast shoe store chain). She looked almost pretty.
She bought some of Daddy's books at the Bridgton Pharmacy. Then she
drove out to the Kings' house and pretended she wanted Daddy to sign
his books. She drove in a car. She could have ridden her broom, but she
didn't want the Kings to know she was a witch.
And in her handbag were four magic cookies. Four evil magic
cookies.
Four cookies! Four cookies full of black magic!
The banana cookie, the milk bottle cookie, and worst of all, two
crying cookies. Don't let her in, Kings! Oh please don't let her in! But
she looked so nice...and she was smiling...and she had Daddy's books
soooo....they let her in. Daddy signed her book, Mommy offered her tea.
Naomi asked if she would like to see her room. Joe asked if she would
like to see him write his name. Witch Hazel smiled and smiled. It almost
broke her face to smile.
"You have been so nice to me that I would like to be nice to you." said
Witch Hazel. "I have baked four cookies. A cookie for each King."
"Cookies!" shouted Naomi. "Hooray!"
"Cookies!" shouted Joe. "Cookies!"
“That was awfully nice," said Mommy. "You shouldn't have."
"But we're glad you did," said Daddy.
They took the cookies. Witch Hazel smiled. And when she was in her
car she shrieked and cackled with laughter. She laughed so hard that her
cat Basta hissed and shrank away from her. Witch Hazel was happy
when her wicked plan succeeded.
"I will like this banana cookie," Daddy said. He ate it and what a
terrible thing happened. His nose turned into a banana and when he
went down to his office to work on his book much later that terrible day
the only word he could write was banana.
It was Witch Hazel's wicked magic Banana Cookie.
Poor Daddy!
"I will like this milk-bottle cookie," Mommy said. "What a funny name
for a cookie.” She ate it and the evil cookie turned her hands into
milk-bottles. What an awful thing. Could she fix the food with
Milkbottles for hands? Could she type? No! She could not even pick her
nose.
Poor Mommy!
"We will like these crying cookies," Naomi and Joe said. What a
funny name for a cookie." They each ate one and they began to cry!
They cried and cried and could not stop! The tears streamed out of their
eyes. There were puddles on the rug. Their clothes got all wet. They
couldn't eat good meals because they were crying. They even cried in
their sleep.
It was all because of Witch Hazel's evil crying cookies.
The Kings were not the happiest family in Bridgton anymore. Now they
were the saddest family in Bridgton. Mommy didn't want to go
shopping because everybody laughed at her milk-bottle hands. Daddy
couldn't write books because all the words came out banana and it was
hard to see the typewriter anyway because his nose was a banana. And
Joe and Naomi just cried and cried and cried. Witch Hazel was as happy
as a wicked witch ever gets. It was her greatest spell.
One day, about a month after the horrible day of the four cookies
Mommy was walking in the woods. It was about the only thing she
liked to do with her milk-bottle hands. And in the woods she found a
woodchuck caught in a trap.
Poor thing! It was almost dead from fright and pain. There was blood
all over the trap.
"Poor old thing," Mommy said. "I'll get you out of that nasty trap."
But could she open the trap with milk bottles for hands? No.
So she ran for Daddy and Naomi and Joe. Fifteen minutes later all
four Kings were standing around the poor bloody woodchuck in the
trap. The Kings were not bloody, but what a strange, sad sight they
were! Daddy had a banana In the middle of his face. Mommy had milkbottle hands. And the two children could not stop crying.
"I think we can get him out," Daddy said.
"Yes," Mummy said. "I think we can get him out if we all work
together. And I will start. I will give the poor thing a drink of milk from
my hands." And she gave him a drink. She felt a little better. Naomi and
Joe were trying to open the jaws of the cruel trap while the woodchuck
looked at them hopefully. But the trap would not open. It was an old
trap, and its hinges and mean sharp teeth were clogged with rust.
"It will not open," Naomi said and cried harder than ever. "No, it will
not open at all!"
"I can't open it," Joe said and cried his eyes out. The tears streamed
out of his eyes and down his cheeks. "I can't open it either."
And Daddy said "I know what to do. I think."
Daddy bent over the hinge of the trap with his funny banana nose. He
squeezed the end of it with both hands. Ouch! It hurt! But out came six
drops of banana oil. They felt onto the rusty hinge of the trap, one drop
at a time.
"Now try," said Daddy.
This time the trap opened easily.
"Hooray!" shouted Naomi.
"He's out! He's out!" shouted Joe.
"We have all worked together," said Mommy. "I gave the woodchuck
milk. Daddy oiled the trap with his banana nose. And Naomi and Joe
opened the trap to let him out."
And then they all felt a little better, for the first time since Witch
Hazel cast he wicked spell.
And have you guessed yet? Oh, I bet you have. The woodchuck was
really not a woodchuck at all. He was the Prince of the Kingdom of
New Hampshire who had also fallen under the spell of Wicked Witch
Hazel. When the trap was opened the spell was broken, and instead of a
woodchuck, a radiant Prince in a Brooks Brothers suit stood before the
King family.
"You have been kind to me even, in your own sadness," said the
Prince, "and that is the most difficult thing of all. And so through the
power vested in me, the spell of the wicked witch is broken and you are
free!"
Oh, happy day.
Daddy's banana nose disappeared and was replaced with his ownnose,
which was not too handsome but certainly better than a slightly
squeezed banana. Mommy's milk-bottles were replaced with her own
pink hands.
Best of all, Naomi and Joe stopped crying. They began to smile, then
they began to laugh! Then the Prince of New Hampshire began to laugh.
Then Daddy and Mommy began to laugh. The Prince danced with
Mommy and Naomi and carried Joe on his shoulders. He shook hands
with Daddy and said he had admired Daddy's books before he had been
turned into a woodchuck.
All five of them went back to the nice house by the lake, and Mommy
made tea for everyone. They all sat at the table and drank their tea.
"We ought to do something about that witch," Mommy said. "So she
can't do something wicked to someone else."
"I think that is true," said the Prince. "And it so happens that I know
one spell myself. It will get rid of her."
He whispered to Daddy. He whispered to Mommy. He whispered to
Naomi and Joe, and they nodded and giggled and laughed.
That very afternoon they drove up to Witch Hazel's haunted house on
the Secret Road. Basta, the cat, looked at them with his big yellow eyes,
hissed, and ran away.
They did not drive up in the Kings' pretty red Cadillac, or in the
Prince's Mist Grey Mercedes 390SL. They drove up in an old, old car
that wheezed and blew oil.
They were wearing old clothes with fleas jumping out of them.
They wanted to look poor to fool Witch Hazel.
They went up and the Prince knocked on the door.
Witch Hazel ripped the door open. She was wearing a tall black hat.
There was a wart on the end of her nose. She smelled of frog's blood
and owls' hearts and ant's eyeballs, because she had been whipping up
horrible brew to make more black magic cookies.
"What do you want?" she rasped at them. She didn't recognize them in
their old clothes. "Get out. I'm busy!"
"We are a poor family on our way to California to pick oranges," the
Prince said.
"What has that to do with me?" The witch shrieked. "I ought to turn
you into oranges for disturbing me! Now good day!"
She tried to close the door but the Prince put his foot in it. Naomi and
Joe shoved it back open.
"We have something to sell you," Daddy said. "It is the wickedest
cookie in the world. If you eat it, it will make you the wickedest witch
in the world, even wickeder than Witch Indira in India. We will sell it to
you for one thousand dollars."
"I don't buy what I can steal!" Witch Hazel shrieked. She snatched the
cookie and gobbled it down. "Now I will be the wickedest witch in the
whole world!" And she cackled so loudly that the shutters fell off her
house.
But the Prince wasn't sorry. He was glad. And Mommy wasn't sorry,
because she had baked the cookie. And Daddy wasn't sorry, because he
had gone to New Hampshire to get the 300 year-old baked beans that
went into the cookie.
Naomi and Joe? They just laughed and laughed, because they knew
that it wasn't a Wicked Cookie that Witch Hazel had just eaten.
It was a Farting Cookie.
Witch Hazel felt something funny.
She felt it building in her tummy and her behind. It felt like a of gas. It
felt like an explosion looking for a place to happen.
"What have you done to me!" she shrieked. "Who are you?'"
"I am the Prince of New Hampshire," the Prince cried, raising his face
so she could see it clearly for the first time.
"And we are the Kings," Daddy said. "Shame on you for turning my
wife's hands into milk bottles! Double shame on you for turning my
nose into a banana. Triple shame on you for making my Naomi and my
Joe cry all day and all night. But we've fixed you now, Wicked Witch
Hazel!"
"You won't be casting anymore spells," said Naomi. "Because you are
going to the moon!"
"I'm not going to the moon!" Witch Hazel screeched so loudly that the
chimney fell on the lawn. "I'm going to turn you all into cheap antiques
that not even tourists will buy!"
"No you're not," said Joe, "because you ate the magic cookie. You ate
the magic farting cookie."
The wicked witch foamed and frothed. She tried to cast her spell. But
it was too late: the Farting Cookie had done its work. She felt a big fart
coming on. She squeezed her butt to keep it in until she could cast her
spell, but it was too late.
WHONK! went the fart. It blew all the fur off her cat, Basta. It blew in
the windows. And Witch Hazel went up in the air like a rocket.
"Get me down!'' Witch Hazel screamed. Witch Hazel came down all
right. She came down on her fanny. And when she came down, she let
another fart.
DRRRRRRAPPP! went the fart. It was so windy it knocked down the
witch's home and the Bridgton Trading Post. You could see Dom
Cardozl sitting on the toilet where he had been pooping. It was all that
was left of the Trading Post except for one bureau that had been made in
Grand Rapids
The witch went flying up into the sky. She flew up and up until she
was as small as a speck of coal dust.
"Get me down," Witch Hazel called, sounding very small and far
away.
"You'll come down all right," Naomi said.
Down came Witch Hazel.
"Yeeeaaahhhh!" she screamed falling out of the sky.
Just before the could hit the ground and be crushed (as maybe she
deserved), she cut another fart, the biggest one of all. The smell was
like two million egg salad sandwiches. And the sound was KAHIONK!!!
Up she went again.
"Goodbye, Witch Hazel," yelled Mommy waving. "Enjoy the moon."
"Hope you stay a long time," called Joe.
Up and up went Witch Hazel until she was out of sight. During the
news that night the Kings and the Prince of New Hampshire heard
Barbara Walters report that a UFW had been seen by a 747 airplane
over Bridgton. Maine – an unidentified flying witch.
And that was the end of wicked Witch Hazel. She is on the moon now,
and probably still farting.
And the Kings are the happiest family in Bridgton again. They often
exchange visits with the Prince of New Hampshire, who is now King.
Daddy writes books and never uses the word banana. Mommy uses her
hands more than ever. And Joe and Naomi King hardly ever cry.
As for Witch Hazel, she was never seen again, and considering those
terrible farts she was letting when she left, that is probably a good thing!